THE SNOW LION NEWSLETTER

Matthieu Ricard at the Rubin Museum

A new exhibition of photographs, "Matthieu Ricard: The Compassionate Eye," is on view at the Rubin Museum of Art (RMA) in New York City. Matthieu Ricard, a writer, translator and photographer highly regarded for his scholarship and knowledge of Buddhism and Tibetan culture, is a Tibetan Buddhist monk. He has photographed the people, landscapes, spiritual teachers and traditions of Tibet, Nepal, India, and Bhutan for over thirty years.

This beautiful show includes a wide selection of recent works never before exhibited as well as selections from his previously published three books of photography. These are unforgettable images -young monks leaping joyously by the edge of the sea, a forest of fluttering prayer flags, the brilliant colors of swirling robes. The images pull the viewer into a world that is vivid, immediate and intensely sacred. Many of the most recent photographs depict Kham in far eastern Tibet, a vast, mountainous region that Westerners rarely visit. Henri Cartier Bresson said of Ricard's work, "Matthieu's camera and spiritual life camera are one, and from this springs these images -fleeting and eternal."

After completing his doctoral thesis in 1972, Ricard lived in the Himalayans and became the close attendant of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche (one of the most eminent Tibetan masters of our times). He documented his teacher's life in the photo book Journey to Enlightenment and in the video The Spirit of Tibet. His photographs have appeared internationally in numerous books, magazines, and on book covers.

He received the French National Order of Merit for his humanitarian work in the East. He is the French interpreter for the Dalai Lama and is an active participant in the research of the Mind Life Institute on the brain and meditation.

The exhibition runs through mid-summer 2005. Rubin Museum of Art (RMA), 150 West 17th Street, New York City. See www.rmanyc.org.

For more about Matthieu Ricard and his work visit www.shechen.org

HH the Dalai Lama with Khyentse Yangsi Rinpoche, the incarnation of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche	Horsemen greeting the arrival of Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche in Tibet
The monks of Shechen Monastery in eastern Tibet continue the tradition of sacred music and dance	Monks practicing for the annual dance festival in Shechen Monastery, Nepal
Tibetan sacred dance uses masks, costumes, and visualization to combine meditation and pure movement in a form of prayer	A "forest" of prayer flags in Bhutan
Monk dancer by the sea in France	Matthieu Ricard (Photo by Raphaele Demandre)
Young Tibetan girl in her finery	Horses on the Kailash plains, Tibet